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Here's a set of small patches for the Thief 3 editor executables, a spin-off of the first patches I made for TFMM to make installed FMs independent of the registry.

The main objective in this context is to make the editor installation independent of the game, removing the need for Thief3Launcher. It will also allow you to run several independent editor installations in parallel.

Features:

Ignore the ION_ROOT and SaveGamePath registry keys. Savegames, user options, generated IBTs etc. are kept in the root of the editor installation

Multicore fixes where needed

Patch to make T3Ed relaunch itself correctly if not started through T3.exe

Installation should be straightforward. The installer will detect and uninstall any current installation. The start menu group is shared with the game edition.

The Editor Edition can be installed to more than one location, in case multiple editor installations are in use. But the various shortcuts are only available for the first installation and only the first installation can be removed through the control panel. (To remove a specific instance, open the root of that editor installation, go to the SneakyUpgrade\Uninstall folder and execute the uninstaller directly.)

After installation T3MainReleaseVersion.exe ('Send to XBox') will be identical to the one installed as Thief3.exe (renamed T3Main.exe) by the Game Edition. It will detect that it's running under the name T3MainReleaseVersion.exe and adjust its behaviour for use in an editor context.

When using FMSel for FM loading there's a feature to allow the FM to override certain settings in the SneakyOptions.ini file which is copied in when the FM is installed. This is relevant if your FM has custom movies or loading screens, or if the mechanical eye zoom with the overlay is known to work in the FM. Please see the readme for details.

Holding Shift while selecting the Send to Xbox menu item will make the game exe generate IBT files for the current map and then quit. By default the .ibt files and corresponding .gmp are moved/copied/renamed into an ExportedMaps folder structure within the editor installation. But it can also target an FM folder directly, for test with the game installation and FMSel. See the release post or the readme for details.

The two custom executables I can currently think of are New Horizon's T3EnhancEd (see sticky thread, I don't know if any of the links still work but I should have it somewhere) and the larger static mesh browser viewport.You can find interesting developments in the depths of this forum anyway, still now I'm surprised at times.

After testing the map in the game mode (Send to xbox command) all my viewports are empty. Using the Play map icon doesn't work. Maybe there's something wrong with my setup.

Btw. Is it intentional to have 2 T3Ed.exes in the Task Manager?

[EDIT] I had Sneaky upgrade installed in the editor, I removed it, also cleared all the logs and deleted editorprefs.ini. There's no error any more, but I still get empty viewports after launching the game from the editor.

[EDIT2] I deleted all the exes and used those from the original Editor package, patched them and copied to my System folder. Now everything works like charm. Looks like my install had some altered files or configs i forgot about Sticking to the manual resolves everything

Btw2. Is it the placebo effect or the loading times and the overall editor performance got faster? Anyway, good work, keep it up

Glad you got it sorted out. If you start T3Ed directly it may be possible to briefly see two instances in the task manager because of the way it restarts itself if T3 is not running. But there should be only one when it's up and running normally.

Performance improvements must be placebo, or maybe you got something else cleaned up in the process? There is a tiny bit of processing time saved because of the eliminated registry calls (which happen all the time for some reason). But I'd be surprised if it was enough to be noticeable.

@Beleg: Thanks for the links, the patch must be for the one with the larger SM browser. I'll adapt it to other versions if there's a need, it shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah right, I have the original one now. Would be nice if you have the time. I'll probably also ask you for a simple patched exe file so I don't have to do the roll-back to vanilla T3Ed before patching. Lazy me.

Which patch do you have in mind? T3Ed.exe does not need a widescreen fix, does it? If you mean for T3MainOptVersion, in the end I'll probably give in and port the widescreen stuff to that version. It should be easy enough, only quite tedious...

Which patch do you have in mind? T3Ed.exe does not need a widescreen fix, does it? If you mean for T3MainOptVersion, in the end I'll probably give in and port the widescreen stuff to that version. It should be easy enough, only quite tedious...

@Beleg: See PM

It doesn't have to be T3MainOptVersion, T3MainReleaseVersion will do, for some final testing and UI changes and movies. It's just for the sake of clarity and convenience. It's easy to mess up T3ed configuration as it is, so eliminating any additional installs is always a good idea

Updated the first post to 1.1.1. Only the patch for T3MainReleaseVersion.exe has changed, but the other exes now follow the same version numbering scheme used for the game patch: 1.1.x.y, where x is the latest release and y is a revision number. To see which of two versions of the same file is newer it's enough to compare the y values: Bigger is newer. Same is the same, regardless of x...

Note that FMSel.dll and 7z.dll are not needed in an editor context, since the loader stuff is disabled here.

Edit: Updated the first post to 1.1.1.1, which fixes the bugs in T3MainReleaseVersion.exe.

The editor itself works fine on my end, although it switches to basic win 7 theme right after launch, not sure why. It reverts back to normal when closed.

I can't use the Play Level option, it crashes. When I use Send to Xbox command (along with the xbreboot.bat file) it crashes. But if use this option again, it works fine. Looks like it has something to do with T3.exe process. If it's not present in the task manager, launching the map ends with a crash to desktop. I have a clean install with no custom content right now.

Edit: using the Send to Xbox option for the first time after launching the editor works fine, but T3.exe process vanishes from the Task Manager when you exit the game, so that might be the cause.

Edit 2: uninstalling Sneaky Upgrade for the game install eliminated Windows 7 theme switch, but T3exe. process is still being terminated right after I finish testing my map.

Edit3: Found SneakyOptions.ini, setting KillT3OnExit to false should do the trick.

The editor itself works fine on my end, although it switches to basic win 7 theme right after launch, not sure why..

You probably have installed the game patch with the "disable desktop effects" option checked? That will activate some compatibility modes which are attached to T3.exe. It's fixable, I'll put it on the to-do list.

Edit3: Found SneakyOptions.ini, setting KillT3OnExit to false should do the trick.

Sorry for all that trouble - and good that you found that option. Of course T3.exe should be left running in an editor context. In the next version I'll disable the T3 termination when the patch is running as T3MainReleaseVersion.exe.

Thanks for making changes on such short notice Play Level crashes was probably a mistake on my end, I deleted T3Main.exe and renamed T3MainOpt to it, so now it works. I was wondering though, shouldn't there be custom widescreen resolutions to choose from in this mode as well? Obviously T3MainReleaseVersion.exe is the most important thing, but I guess having such option in T3MainOpt wouldn't hurt

Unfortunately it's quite a bit of work, porting the widescreen stuff to the Opt version... I once attempted to port only the larger set of resolutions, but I couldn't get Hadley's 16:9 fix to work in the Opt version. And it's either that, or port all the widescreen stuff - otherwise there'll be crashes in 16:9 modes.

What am I doing wrong if both of my playtest modes work with widescreen? Unfortunately I don't have a proper widescreen monitor at the moment but I thought it worked with the extra resolutions. Plus, it still is some non-4:3 ration so there should be some difference.

Updated the first post with the 1.1.2 version, which now has an actual installer... The patch for T3MainReleaseVersion.exe has been updated to match the 1.1.2 Game Edition, the other patches are unchanged.

The readme now describes the testing/mapper options that are not mentioned in the readme for the Game Edition. The readme also describes how to override the user's options by including a SneakyOptions_diff.ini file in the FM. This is mainly relevant for the new movie and loading screen aspect ratio options, the intro-movie-as-briefing option and the mecheye tweak.

Note that there's a new options section for FMs. The NoDeletion option has been moved there, and there's a new option, PrepareAtLaunch, to have the Thief 3 specific FM preparation executed every time the FM is launched, instead of only at installation time. This can be convenient while testing an FM.